


A Broken Alignment

by Thornapple



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Belonging, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Gen, Kylo Ren character study, Kylo Ren is a Mess, Loneliness, Look At Your Life Look At Your Choices, Pining, Power Dynamics, Rey character study, Rey is not nothing not to anyone, Understanding, let the past die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-23 21:01:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13198494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thornapple/pseuds/Thornapple
Summary: Amidst the charred remains of the throne room, opportunity shines and choices are made. A sense of purpose can be channeled into many different places.





	A Broken Alignment

**Author's Note:**

> My take on the thought process behind all that intense eye contact.

‘Love and power both try to overcome loneliness, and the sense of man’s insufficiency stemming from this loneliness, through duplication of his individuality. Through love, man seeks another human being like himself, the Platonic other half of his soul, to form a union which will make him whole. Through power, man seeks to impose his will upon another man, so that the will of the object of his power mirrors his own. What love seeks to discover in another man as a gift of nature, power must create through the artifice of psychological manipulation. Love is reunion through spontaneous mutuality, power seeks to create a union through unilateral imposition.’

-Hans J. Morgenthau, _Love and Power_

.

**Ben**

“Rey, I’d like you to join me.” Amidst the charred remains of the throne room, opportunity shines. This is his chance, perhaps the best he’ll ever get, to break free from the shackles of the past, to crush the burden of tradition underfoot. He saved her life, and to a castaway, unwanted orphan, that has to count for something.

Kylo Ren is nothing if not an opportunist, and the hollow quality of loneliness is something he understands almost as well as the desire for power.

“Please,” he tells her.

He can see that she’s wavering, this nobody from nowhere, who brims with potential which can, under the right guidance, be sharpened and honed into the deadliest of tools. With their combined strength, the possibilities are endless. A new tyrant, they might call him – and her – but never again will the echoes of Vader plague his legacy; he is _himself_ , secure in the niche he and the girl will carve out together in the galaxy. All he needs now is cooperation and an alignment.

What surprises him in the end is how much her rejection stings. Because _why, why, why_ , does she have to ruin _everything_?

.

He thought he’d understood her better than anyone else ever had. Hadn’t she, too, been plagued with that gnawing feeling of inadequacy, of loneliness, night after night? He remembers all too clearly the fear in his mother’s eyes that she thought he wouldn’t notice, as well as the apprehension on his father’s face when confronted with a son he would never be able to truly relate to.

He tries to tell himself that her attempts to turn him are amusing and frustrating in equal measure, but deep down, an ache occasionally surfaces that he tries to ignore.

.

He forgets himself and flinches when she shuts the door on him. The encounter with Skywalker’s projection has shredded his vestiges of self-control.

It’s infuriating, he tells himself, that she refuses the promise of such power. Have they not both had to strive and claw every inch of their way in the struggle for significance? Does she not understand how the existing order has let them both down, and that in one stroke she has just given away a chance to revenge herself on said order and guarantee herself a better place in the galaxy? They could have been _unstoppable_.

He is nothing if not an opportunist, and Rey is nothing if not a fool. That he yearns to speak to her again, to just look upon her, is inconsequential.

* * *

**Rey**

It scares her, how easily Ben is able to pick at her vulnerabilities. She had been so sure that he would turn, that she would have been able to effect such change. But in the end, upon reflection, her vision had been accurate – it was just her conclusions that had been off.

For a moment there, she’d thought that she’d found her sense of purpose. It had largely been empathy which had driven her to seek him out, but there was also something comforting in looking for certainty in (what turned out to be) dubious places. The chance to be a part of something bigger than her own hand-to-mouth existence had been something she hadn't been able to bring herself to give up.

She takes her opportunities where she can.

And he understands her on a level which is almost frightening. He knows, _he knows_ , and she recognises familiar echoes in him, if her estimation isn’t off the mark this time. It’s almost giddying, the sensation of finding someone who comprehends the underlying anguish. For a moment she is almost tempted to buy into his vision of their future, where she is worth a damn, where she _matters_ , and where she can be – someone more than the unwanted child of junk traders.

The spell is broken by a wave of revulsion and accompanying resolve.

In the end, she feels very little regret for shutting the door in Kylo’s face. She thought she’d seen understanding in him as well as shades of a kindred spirit, and perhaps there had been, but her choices are made and so are his. That her path has somehow ended up with the Resistance, with Finn and Chewie and General Leia, as well as all the rest of them, is something she feels nothing but gratitude for.

She is the unwanted child of junk traders and she is a scavenger from Jakku. She is both of those things, and yet it matters squat to those she has met and who she cares about in the Resistance. And one day the ache will dull. One day, she will be that _and_ more.

But for now, there is work that needs doing.


End file.
